Category Archives: Retrospective

Retrospective: Alice Cooper’s Love It To Death (1971)

Love It To Death saw the original Alice Cooper band emerging from the psychedelic haze of their first two albums. Under the stewardship of soon-to-be-famed producer Bob Ezrin, the band reined in their free-form tendencies in favor of a sharper, … Continue reading

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Retrospective: Horrified, Chemical Exposure, Altars of Madness, and I.N.R.I.

A fine test of whether you take yourself altogether too seriously is to stay locked up in a room and play the four titles mentioned in this post’s header. If you can’t contain yourself from running around with mad abandon … Continue reading

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Retrospective: Pagan Altar’s Mythical And Magical

“Beware the Crow that stands alone, the one that watches and waits, Beware that unguarded moment, that subtle twist of fate. It may just be the eyes of the Crow man” Nunhead Cemetery in South London provided a perennial inspiration … Continue reading

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Post-Symphonies Of Sickness Carcass is redundant

On Reek Of Putrefaction, British band Carcass made a statement that has resonated through extreme music for almost two decades. Every goregrind band – and by direct correlation, underground metal-related music in general – owes a debt of gratitude to … Continue reading

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Is every metalhead an island unto himself?

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.” ― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities What does your fellow metalhead think about when you’re both … Continue reading

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Morbid Angel: Prophets from the dark side

The most important death metal band, Morbid Angel, is also perhaps the most poignant lyrically. Metal fans often give short shrift to this aspect of the music, most times for good reason too. But Morbid Angel‘s words, at least in … Continue reading

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Retrospective: Unanimated – In The Forest Of The Dreaming Dead

A Swedish contemporary of melodically nuanced bands like Dissection and Sacramentum, Unanimated‘s atmospheric blend of death/black metal presented newer avenues of accessibility within the underground paradigm without losing touch with the driving impulse integral to the music. Boasting its fair … Continue reading

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Retrospective on Lymphatic Phlegm: Goregrind as art

Lymphatic Phlegm‘s debut is one of the more unique albums to have come out of this fetid style, posing a study in contrasts between the pummeling, terrorizing rhythms of traditional goregrind, and a  sense of structure and melody borrowed directly … Continue reading

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Retrospective: Beheaded – Perpetual Mockery (1998)

Beheaded from little Malta went on to become one of the bigger brutal death metal bands of the 00s but their debut Perpetual Mockery was a somewhat different animal from the relatively orthodox Suffocation-leanings they adopted later on. Perpetual Mockery … Continue reading

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Retrospective: Rune – The End Of Nothing (2003)

Why does one pull at a scab? Why does the restless tongue probe the throbbing cavity? Why does the mind will a strained ligament to move beyond its tolerated range of motion? What demons prompt us to revisit particularly painful … Continue reading

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